Adduné (The Vampire's Game)

by Wendy Potocki

  “Not everyone.”

  “As I thought! Who?”

  “A caretaker and shipper. I met one and not the other.”

  “It is a start, but not what I’m talking about, Mademoiselle. I mean people close to you – family, friends … perhaps a lover. Someone you are on intimate terms with perhaps?”

  Jake! Miranda thought of Jake, but remained silent. She would not feed into this fantasy.

  “No, and I’m afraid you need to leave, Mr. Stroker. I appreciate the concern, but …”

  Stroker stood pushing the heavy iron chair back with such force that it tipped over. He bent down and picked it up as he spoke to Miranda as if she were a child.

  “… but you refuse to do anything to prevent the attack! You will wait until all your loved ones die! You are telling me that their lives don’t count and you value no one?

  “No, I’m not! And I am asking you again to leave!”

  “Mademoiselle, you are driving me crazy! You and your obstinance! It is the same attribute of your father, is it not? And you ask me why you? Anyone would know that except the person that cannot even see the nose on their face. Good day, and please, Mademoiselle, do not lose my card. I assure you that you will be needing it – soon!”

  He brushed angrily past Tiffany who had returned. She was holding the bag containing the fresh croissants. Stroker swept by stopping only to tip his hat and say he’d let himself out.

  “What got into him?” she said placing the bag down on the table.

  “Vampires,” was the terse reply.

  CHAPTER 37

  Miranda stayed at Tiffany’s for another cup of coffee, a second croissant, the sharing of the pain of losing Jake, and a little chat about Stroker. Tiffany admitted she recognized him by the length of that nail on his left pinky. She’d taken the occasion to take a jab at Miranda by saying that she had at least listened to what Miranda had said. It jogged something in Miranda about cutting Tiffany off, but not enough to remember the entire incident. It did have something to do with Stroker. He had been somehow involved. How she didn’t know. It was lost in that tangled web called her memory …

  She took her leave by breezily telling Tiffany she was off to watch the video. Tiffany didn’t take the remark so lightly – she did her best to warn her against viewing it. She’d said that imagining it was one thing, but seeing it was something else again.

  When she’d arrived at her modest apartment, all her shopping bags in hand, the comfort she felt was stupendous. She immediately felt safe. There was a sanctity afforded by the thick walls and Jimmy sitting downstairs. She’d spent time putting all her new purchases away. She loved organization and insisted on it in her residences. She made herself a cup of tea ready to see the damage.

  She sat at her desk and watched the video. The feeling of security was removed as soon as her panties were. It had been no problem at all to find since it was posted on at least thirty different websites – not counting the links available on hundreds more. If it were possible to attach neon arrows pointing to it on the internet, that most likely would have been done also. Miranda had again brushed away her friend’s advice – and once again been wrong. She’d watched herself playing slap and tickle with the worthless gigolo. Now there would be no getting the images out of her head. Miranda’s more contentious side had countered that that was entirely the point. She wanted to rub her nose into what she’d done. She deserved to know the full extent of what a ludicrous position she’d placed herself in. She swore she would never again give someone that much power over her. The video was worse than she imagined – she looked like a complete fool. Like a dog on a leash that delighted in being beaten and merely hanging its head compliantly down. Wagging its tail whilst begging for more. She wanted to slap the girl she saw on the film. Slap her across her stupid, gaping face until she attained some sense. A good self-inflicted beating would do her a world of good. It was a shame that self-flagellation had gone out of style.

  When it finished, she put her head down on her arm. She felt like crying, but couldn’t dredge up that much emotion. Jake deserved her tears – he had been a blameless, innocent victim. She had just been stupid – a moronic jerk – there was a huge difference. No, she deserved no sympathy and no tears. It would be a life lesson and she would grow from it and be stronger. She hit the replay button determined to watch it again.

  There was a faint knock on her door. At first she thought she imagined it, or that it was directed at her neighbor’s apartment located across the hall, but it repeated. She got up and walked to the double-locked door.

  “Who is it?” she called out looking through the peephole.

  “Me,” came the smarmy reply from the arrogant, self-satisfied looking man on the other side of the door.

  He couldn’t have picked a better time as the images of that video were embedded in her mind stoking her and provoking her towards an all-out fight. She swung the door open and looked at the person hanging back in the corner. God, did she hate him!

  “What do you want?” she lashed out – fury coursing through her veins more so than blood. She wanted to kill him and would have if she could have gotten away with it.

  “To talk to you – obviously.”

  His hubris was disquieting. He didn’t even have the decency to act as if he gave a shit. It further antagonized her. She took a step out into the hall deliberately encroaching on his territory. He didn’t budge an inch, looking mildly amused by her show of aggression.

  “The only thing obvious is your lack of integrity, your arrogance, and your complete lack of anything resembling morals!”

  “Begging for more are we?” he said bending down and licking the side of her face.

  “You bastard!” she screamed as she hit him with full force – flush on the side of his face. She hoped it was the same spot that Tiffany had struck the night before – and that it was still sore.

  His eyes glowered as he touched his cheek where the blow had landed.

  “That will do nothing to get you out of the situation you’re in. In fact, it will only ratchet up what will happen as there will be one more thing for you to pay dearly for.”

  Miranda leaned into him, her chest touching his. She spat into his face.

  “Then add that to your laundry list, you filthy coward! If my father were here he would kill you!”

  Peter pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed casually at the spittle sticking to his eyebrows and lashes. “You father is here, Miranda.”

  Miranda was rocked by the comment. It was vulgar to suggest to someone that the dead was amongst the living. He was just doing it to get to her. Using psychology again. She’d been right about that at least. He was well-studied in the art of it, only he probably called it warfare. “I will not let you get to me. You’ll find out the hard way that I’m not to be trifled with.”

  “An ineffectual, little nothing like you? I doubt it,” he sniffed, arranging the handkerchief back in its place. He smoothed the lace peeking out from the pocket. He tugged at it, as if offering it to her.

  “Unless you want to use this before I put it away?”

  “Conceited buffoon! You have quite a future in the porn industry. Oh, but then they show their faces! Why didn’t you? Hiding from someone, Mr. Adduné?”

  She could see a touch of anger arise in face. The twinge of a muscle tensing told her that he was not as impenetrable and in control as he thought he was. It felt good to be on the offense.

  “What? No facile, superficial answer, Mr. Adduné?”

  He took a step forward. Their bodies were touching – neither one backing down.

  “Afraid of inviting me in?” he said changing subjects and tactics. He was back on the offensive and Miranda was not happy about it.

  She had landed a blow, but so had he. He was bringing up that subject again – the one she didn’t want to talk about. He was forcing her to discuss just that and in discussing it, it entered into her thinking. As much as she dismi
ssed the concept, there was that primal fear in her about the paranormal. The idea of vampires was so dramatically, chillingly frightening. On the inside was a loathing of them – of the entire suggestion that they could exist. From the center of that fear came the realization that she didn’t want him in her residence. It was shouting at her to bar it from him and exclude him from entering her domain. However, if she faced her fear, it would mean doing the opposite. It would mean inviting him in.

  Her mind flipped it over and came up with a plan. If he had switched topics, so could she.

  “And why should I be afraid? Do you think I would fall for another sexual escapade with you so easily? Especially since the first one was so remarkably unsatisfying for me.”

  His full lips turned up at the corners. There was the merest hint of his white teeth through them as he spoke. He was not deterred and wouldn’t relinquish his hold on the subject.

  “You know what I’m talking about. I’ve left enough clues to tell you what is going on. At least one of your simpleton acquaintances must have warned you by now, but not Jake since he was … an unfortunate victim of this game.”

  Did he mention Jake? His death? Was he accepting some responsibility for that or implicating himself? Was it a murder?

  He was directly challenging her and Miranda would not back down. He was using psychology, the same as Reginald the day he told her that ghost story at Weatherly. Anyone could see Miranda was uncomfortable with the supernatural. It didn’t take someone psychic to discover it. Peter had seen her reluctance and uneasiness in dealing with the subject. That was it, and her reluctance needed to end here and now. She needed to get over whatever was causing her discomfort. In other words, she needed to grow up. She was still being a child and wanting her parents to sweep her bedroom – look under her bed and tell her there was no monster. She was grown and could do that for herself. There was no such thing as vampires and she certainly wasn’t afraid of inviting a man into her abode.

  “How did you get up here? Oh, I forgot! You flew! Well, if you went to that much trouble … come in,” she replied calmly as she stepped to the side of the entrance, “please.”

  Peter nodded and gracefully moved past her and into her home. It was her home and he was defiling it, but it was the only way she could show him that she had no fear of him and the subject at hand. The chill that ran through her told her she’d made a mistake.

  Peter walked to the computer still replaying the video.

  “Can’t get enough of it, can you? How many times have you watched? Twenty? More?” he taunted as he sauntered into her living room. He spread his arms and presented himself, “Well, here I am in person, Miranda. Do as you wish! I am yours for the taking!”

  He lowered himself onto the overstuffed cushions of Miranda’s sectional sofa. He crossed his legs and raised his arms up onto the back, looking like a murderous black crow.

  “As if anyone would want anything so pathetic,” Miranda shot back planting herself across from him. She crossed her legs and placed her hands on the wooden arm rests. She dug her nails into the ends using it as a makeshift scratching post.

  “Now what were you babbling about out there? Something about clues? And a game?”

  “Yes, Miranda. Figgs, Weatherly, Pinckus and Blanding Movers. Who do you think arranged for the haunting of Weatherly? I’m assuming that stupid fool of a barrister Reginald Charles has conveyed at least some of what transpired to you. He would be an idiot not to. He knew all about me. I even treated him to a surprise visit. The question is, if he knew about me, why didn’t you?”

  Miranda was not about to show her hand. She decided not to give anything away – especially not about someone on her side. She remembered what Stroker had told her. She’d use it to gain an advantage in finding out what Peter knew. If he were really fixated on this vampire legend, he’d have to acknowledge something.

  “So what you’re saying is that you put things in people’s heads?”

  He took his hands off the back of the couch and twirled them in the air.

  “I can do anything, Miranda. You know what I am!”

  “Not everything. You could never convince anyone that you’re a gentleman.”

  “Really? So you allow people without manners into your drawers so easily?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You were a plaything. Nothing more.”

  “So you do play games?”

  “No game. Just working off tension – or so I thought. You know people with actual feelings are affected by the deaths of their parents, but then you wouldn’t know. You must have been hatched. You’re the perfect example of what came first, the chicken or the egg for you have both rolled up in you.”

  Peter mockingly applauded her.

  “What is it liked to be ruled by emotions, you poor sick girl?”

  “More games? You don’t get to control this conversation, I do. Now what other clues did you leave? What did you mean about Jake?”

  “Jake.” He drew out the name as if pleasuring himself by his own hand. “He never knew what hit him.”

  “And his death is something you had a hand in?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You murdered Jake?”

  “No, not me, but I did let it happen. I give the orders, Miranda. My underlings take orders from me much like your employees do from you. Only I have complete control. How would you relish that, Miranda? Taking orders from me forever and ever? Never being able to think on your own and only doing as I say?”

  Miranda closed her arms around her until they were fixed across her chest.

  “I’d rather die!” she swore.

  “Interesting choice of words. What if you couldn’t die? What if I wouldn’t let you?”

  She slapped her hands on the wooden armrest.

  “Oh, here comes the talk about vampires! Do you think me so daft as to believe any of this? Is this more of your insipid little game?”

  “So you dismiss what Reginald has told you? Even when you know he does things for your benefit? He even represents you in trying to reappropriate that tape. The absurdity in offering money! He doesn’t realize that he’s offering me the money and I could care less about that wretched commodity.”

  “Really? But you get pissed off over a glass egg and a few odd bits of furniture?”

  His eyes took on a harsh gaze. His eyebrows pinched together making him resemble a hawk.

  “They were mine! They belonged to me and your father had no right to …”

  “You see! That is how stupid you are! No one is arguing that he did! You had merely to present your case to me and I would have given you back everything with an apology, but you go to these lengths for what? For what reason?”

  His eyes glinted unnaturally. It was as if a secret light had been turned on. A spark of fire came from them as he answered her.

  “Revenge.”

  “Revenge? And you blast me for being ruled by emotions? Revenge is the most base, most foolish emotion of them all!”

  “It satisfies me.”

  “Then you have peasant tastes. Almost as mediocre and worthless as those items that were taken.” She had landed another punch. She watched his jaw tense. She liked him hurt. “Is that it? Reginald and Jake and who else was supposed to give me clues?”

  “Are you referring to your sluttish friend? Her memory is suspect I doubt she could even name the last ten men she’s fucked. No, she couldn’t be trusted to pass on anything more sophisticated than a venereal disease.”

  “Don’t talk about her that way! You’re just angry that she stood up to you. And it was Tiffany that saw through your very shabby exterior to the void it houses.”

  “Then I suppose you should have listened.”

  “So no one else?”

  “That is it.”

  “Then you believe that based on a conversation with Reginald, who you think is a fool, I’m supposed to believe you’re a vampire. Where is your cape? Where are the long teeth?” Miranda studied the
way the sunlight fell on Peter, brushing his hair with luster and his pale skin with dramatic highlights. “And why are you out in the daylight at all? Sitting in the sun apparently not bothered by it? Why is this, Mr. Vampire?”

  “You believe lies. We are nocturnal creatures. Like bats or felines. It doesn’t mean we can’t go out in the daylight, it only means we don’t like to.”

  Miranda waved her hand up in front of her.

  “Whatever. Is this all you needed to say? Are you done?”

  “No, I haven’t even gotten to the best part.”